When you have your eyes on a goal, you’re annoyed by petty things. The busy-ness of these days before Christmas easily frays our nerves and we pop off against one another. Pause for perspective. What’s your goal this Advent? Try this: “Obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:9). What will salvation look like when you fully arrive? No rubbing one another the wrong way. “The wolf shall lie down with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together, and a little child shall lead them” (Isaiah 11:6). Peace. No rubs. No personal conflicts. Eyes on that goal, now you address relationship problems as quickly as you can.
The little child leads you. “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (Romans 5:10). Reconciliation is the in-breaking of Christ’s heavenly kingdom and it intends to change our relationships. Lay out the interpersonal problem in a spirit of forgiveness. Forgiveness doesn’t await an apology. God is judge; we’re not. Forgiveness doesn’t condone wrong. Pursue justice, peaceably. Forgiveness does free you from bondage to what was done. Forgiveness makes straight the path to God. “Come to terms quickly with your accuser” (Matthew 5:25). So here-and-now, when the personality conflicts, the stuff, the sins that come between us become our obsession, your energies aren’t going toward the goal. In the hindsight of eternity, we’ll see the energies we put into many of our conflicts was time wasted. We’re pursuing a goal; let’s get this, whatever it is, behind us!
“Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love; the fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above.”
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